WE are pleased for the opportunity to interact with you, our dear President. At a time when you are daily confronted with telling challenges of state, and the relentless competition for your time by issues of nation-building, we regard your kind consent for an audience with us, as a special honour to the people of the South-East as a whole.
As we thank Your Excellency for the warmth of your reception, may we hasten to register the solidarity and good wishes of our people to you and your administration.
We have come, Sir, to encourage you in your labour of love for our fatherland and to earnestly commend you for the candour, dynamism and statesmanship which you have brought to state craft. As Nigerians and as your relations, we cannot but publicly express our pride in you for the humility and calm disposition with which you confronted the trying circumstances that preceded your assumption of the Presidency of our great nation.
We are persuaded Sir, that your success in stabilising the polity and your manifest efforts to extend the frontiers of national development, constitute potent testimonies to the fact that your call to service at this particular juncture in the history of our nation, is attended by divine ordination. On behalf of all Nigerians of Igbo stock, we assure you of our undiluted commitment to the survival of our nation and we urge you Sir, to take the support, loyalty and co-operation of the people of the South-East as given.
Encouraged by the premium which your administration places on the ideals of equity, justice and fairness, we wish to use the opportunity of this solidarity visit to draw your Excellency’s attention to a number of issues of great concern to our people with a view to eliciting your favourable disposition towards their remediation.
An additional state in the South-East: It is common knowledge that of all the six geo-political zones in the country, the South-East zone remains the only one with five states. Your Excellency, while the National Assembly tackles the critical aspects of constitutional amendments, including state creation, we have come to plead with you to help activate the process towards redressing this obvious imbalance.
It is remarkable, Your Excellency, that in spite of the disparate tendencies which frequently attend national discourse, there is a broad national consensus that the South East zone deserves at least one additional state even as captured by the conclusions of two recent national conferences.
Security: We are heartened that Your Excellency has personally acknowledged the special menace of insecurity in the South-East zone with embarrassing manifestations in kidnapping, armed robbery and other violent crimes. Although the state governments of our zone have adopted a number of stringent measures to combat the menace, we request you Sir, to accord a special security attention to the zone through logistical interventions and the provision of enhanced security infrastructure to sustainably address the situation.
Ecological problems: The devastation of the South-East by erosion and other ecological problems is not news to Your Excellency. Under your chair and at the instance of your predecessor, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the South-East zone was declared an ecological disaster area with far-reaching plans and recommendations. However, not much has been done and our agricultural lands and communal habitat remain at the mercy of erosion, landslide and flood.
The scope and intensity of these ecological problems defy the capacity of the state governments to handle them, for which we passionately plead with Your Excellency to come to the aid of our suffering people by implementing the recommendations of your committee.
Second Niger Bridge, Onitsha: No one seems to be in doubt that the 45-year-old Niger bridge between Onitsha and Asaba has become too old and dangerous with dire implications for the safety of citizens and the economy of the zone in particular and the nation at large. As we reaffirm our commendation to you for the bold decision of cancelling the initial contract for a second Niger bridge, we appeal to you Sir, to speedily cause the commencement of the project.
We also request Mr. President’s kind consideration that the design of the proposed bridge, in line with modern trends, should include provision for rail track. In terms of financial deployment, we have been advised that the cost of providing for rail in the design of the bridge is minimal accounting for less than five per cent of the total cost of such a project.
Other critical bridges: We also use this opportunity to appeal to Your Excellency to initiate the construction of a bridge across the Cross River at Oferekpe and Ndibe respectively in Ebonyi State linking it with Cross River State. Bridges at these points will not only boost the economy and communication between the affected areas, it will also facilitate the goals that informed the trans-African highway through Enugu-Ebonyi-Cross River up to Cameroun .
International airport: In spite of the widely acclaimed commercial and entrepreneurial endowments of South-Easterners, it is regrettable that no international airport exists in the zone. This is why we must seize this opportunity to thank the Federal Government for awarding the contract for the expansion and upgrading of the Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu . Although it had long been designated an international airport, not much was done to concretize its international status.
We urge you Sir, to seek briefs as to the scope of the on-going upgrade with a view to ensuring that all necessary facilities to make the airport conform to international standards: with night flight facilities, customs and immigration services, are provided.
Similarly, although the Sam Mbakwe Airport Owerri had been taken over by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and designated as an international cargo airport, nothing has been done to improve the facilities at this airport.
This airport which was built by the people following the Federal Government’s neglect of the area during the period of general airports development across the country, is so strategically located that it constitutes the only alternative to Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu. We plead for Your Excellency’s intervention to reactivate the abandoned contract for the provision of lights, night landing facilities and other upgrade initiatives to redress the apparent discriminatory treatment of the zone.
REACTIVATION OF ENUGU COAL MINES: Long before now, much of the economy of Eastern Nigeria was driven by the coal mines at Enugu which not only energized the Oji River Power Station for the energy needs of the area, but also provided employment outlets for the people. Scores of industries at Aba , Nnewi and Onitsha axis, for instance, flourished on account of coal mining.
The abandonment of the mining of this crucial resource, followed the collapse of such industries with their collateral consequences to the economy of the entire zone and of Nigeria . This situation should not be allowed to persist. We, therefore, call for the reactivation of coal mining in Enugu because it will ultimately catalyze the economic and industrial resurgence of the entire nation.
FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS: It is hardly in doubt that the South-East zone has groaned under the weight of marginalization with respect to federal appointments. This unwittingly lends credence to the imperative of an additional state in the zone. While we have not come to present a Charter of Equity to your administration, permit us to cite only two representative cases to buttress our contention on the marginalization of the South-East in the area of appointments.
The Judiciary: In spite of the large number of highly qualified legal luminaries in the zone, the South East is not proportionately represented at the Supreme Court or even at the Appeal Courts. We invite Your Excellency to strengthen the application of Federal Character in appointments into the judiciary to correct the obvious disparities.
Heading of Federal Commissions: While we acknowledge that it is the prerogative of the Federal Government to decide who is appointed to head its commissions and agencies, we are concerned that some of the commissions headed only recently by South-Easterners are now being progressively replaced by our brothers and sisters from other zones whenever changes are made in the headship of such commissions. Some examples include the headship of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Police Service Commission (PSC), National Agency for Foods and Drug Administration (NAFDAC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Immigration Service, among others. Our people will greatly appreciate it Sir, if you find people from our zone worthy to occupy similar positions in other sectors to mitigate their feeling of neglect.
TAKE OVER OF EBONYI STATE UNIVERSITY BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Ebonyi State is acknowledged as one of the educationally disadvantaged states in the country, and the only one in the South-East. Incidentally, the state is one of the few states in the country (and the only one in the South-East zone) which does not have a single Federal University .
The situation in Ebonyi State is worsened by the fact of its low resource base which makes the funding of the State University a crushing burden to the state government. In the interest of equity and in order to redress the educational backwardness of the state, we earnestly plead with the Federal Government to take over Ebonyi State University as a federal institution.
THE OIL POLITICS: The politicization of oil and other solid mineral explorations in the country seems to have accounted for the non-exploitation of the crude oil and gas deposits in Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu States . It is sometimes contended in some quarters that the crude oil in these States can serve as a national strategic reserve for future use.
This has negatively impacted on the economy and financial profile of these states. We request the Federal Government to commence the exploration and exploitation of the hydrocarbon deposits or make necessary financial accommodation for these states whose oil deposits have remained unexploited despite the fact that the technological changes in the oil industry makes their exploitation feasible.
Even more pathetic is the case of Abia State , which is acknowledged as an oil producing state and whose oil wells were farmed out to neighbouring states with corresponding loss of revenue. Even when the oil wells were restored, the derivation royalties and other financial accruals have not been released. We appeal to Your Excellency to intervene to remedy the situation. We also seek Mr. President’s kind consideration to reactivate the Enugu Depot of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which has for long not been functioning.
FEDERAL ROADS: The state of roads in the South-East remains the worst nation-wide. While we thankfully acknowledge Your Excellency’s sensitivity to the plight of our people, we wish to draw your attention to the fact that many of the contracts for road construction/rehabilitation in the zone are either not being funded or are not being diligently prosecuted. The deplorable state of roads in the zone has adversely affected the social and economic well being of our long suffering people. In other instances, the quality and pace of work on these roads are poor and frustrating.
The state governments in the zone have had to step in to ameliorate the problem by directly undertaking the reconstruction of some of these roads. We plead with the Federal Government to strengthen the funding and supervision of the road contracts in the zone and effect the refunds to states for their intervention.
CONCLUSION: In raising the above concerns, we are not oblivious of the enormity of the challenges confronting your administration nor do we lose sight of the stiff competition for scarce resources. We are, however, confident that the larger national interest driven by the ideals of equity and fairness would inform the spread of projects, appointments or other incentives, and of course, the corresponding sacrifices. We, therefore, plead with you Sir, to appraise our requests in relation to the situation in other geo-political zones of the country and make the necessary remediation.
Once more, we thank you most sincerely for the privilege of this audience and we reassure you Sir, of our solidarity and partnership with you and your administration at all times. We pray God to remain your anchor and to guide and protect you in your national service.
Excerpts form the speech delivered by Governor Peter Obi when the South East Governors and leaders of Thought met with the president on the 19th of July, 2010
